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Thursday, May 10, 2018
Life works in mysterious ways sometimes.
A year ago, Brian Lees was readying himself for a summer of professional baseball.
Just two years before that, he was doing exactly what he wanted -- paying for his college education by playing the sport he loved in the shadow of his hometown of Brunswick, Ohio, with family and friends looking on.
He had no idea where Cape Girardeau, Missouri, was, nor did he have reason to. Certainly he had no thought that just a few years later he'd be done playing baseball and standing down the first-base line dodging foul balls at Capaha Field.
None of that was the plan.
But as Southeast Missouri State baseball heads into its final home series of the season, it will be Lees standing in the coach's box outside of first base -- quite possibly the last time he will ever be part of a competitive contest at a place he knew nothing of just three years ago but for which he now counts his blessings.
The former Redhawks catcher cuts a relatively anonymous figure in foul territory, what with his dark sunglasses, a beard that's added a little heft since his not-that-long-ago playing days and a role as a student assistant coach that doesn't exactly draw the spotlight. In fact, it might come as a surprise to some who grace the hill at Capaha Field on weekends in the spring that the man offering instruction at first base was, just a year ago, crouched behind the plate, directing the pitching staff and hitting .326 on the season with a team-high 18 doubles.
If you had painted that picture for the Brian Lees of a year ago, it might have surprised him, too.
But Lees has been dealt surprises before.
Southeast Missouri State first base coach Brian Lees coaches along the first-base line during a game against South Dakota State on March 4 at Capaha Field in Cape Girardeau.
BEN MATTHEWS
A big shock
It all started with an email.
Prior to the summer of 2015, everything was going according to plan. Lees had wrapped up his sophomore season at the University of Akron having made 55 starts for a team that made a deep run in the Mid-American Conference Tournament. That came after he had unseated a fifth-year senior as the starter behind the plate midway through his freshman year.
The Zips played a little more than half an hour from his hometown, making it easy for the born-and-bred Ohioan to receive ever-present support from those closest to him.
When he signed with the program, eschewing a preferred walk-on spot at Cincinnati, he told his hometown newspaper, the Brunswick Post, "[Coach Rick Rembielak] offered me a scholarship, and I couldn't pass up anyone wanting to pay for my college. To me, It was a no-brainer."
Now he had not just a scholarship, but a starting job as Akron's catcher, and he was spending the summer of 2015 developing his game with the Alaska Goldpanners in Fairbanks, Alaska.
In this 2016 photo, Southeast Missouri State catcher Brian Lees tags out Belmont base runner Chas Hadden during the fifth inning at Capaha Field.
Fred Lynch
Lees vividly remembers the day everything changed.
"It was mid to late July, finishing up summer ball and getting ready to go back to Akron," Lees says. "The time difference is about four hours and my roommate was back home and calls me at 7 in the morning and I just had a game that night (before) and I'm sleeping. He calls me and says, 'Hey, did you get coach's email?'"
What ensued was what Lees, in a 2015 story in the Akron Beacon Journal, called "panic mode."
The email from Rembielak laid things out: the baseball program had been deemed expendable and was, as of that moment, dissolved.
The university was $60 million in debt and looking for ways to slice its budget. Baseball became one of many victims. According to multiple newspaper reports, it was a decision that had been a year in the making, but not even Rembielak was aware of it until a week before Lees received the email.
According to the Beacon Journal report, 30 of the 35 players on the Zips' roster transferred out. Lees was one, forced to leave home in a mad dash.
"I was in a tough spot when I read [the email]," Lees says. "I had an apartment back in Akron; I had friends, family, obviously, playing close to home. A lot of people came to watch me. It was a shock. ... Especially late July -- school starts in less than a month. I had to move out of my apartment, move to another school, get transcripts sent in. It was a heavy process and a shock, but I got through it and you've got to do what you've got to do if you want to keep playing."
Lees began receiving phone calls immediately, as coaches from around the country scavenged the fresh carcass of Akron baseball. Lance Rhodes and Dillon Lawson, then assistants to Steve Beiser at Southeast, threw their hat into the ring and struck up a line of communication with the free-agent catcher -- with the closure of the program, transfers could move anywhere without sitting out a season -- and ultimately Lees believed SEMO's program was one where he fit well, even if he had never heard of Cape Girardeau.
"I've been here ever since and I've loved it," Lees says. "It's given me a lot of great opportunities."
Southeast Missouri State catcher Brian Lees bats during a game against Western Illinois on Feb. 24, 2017, at Capaha Field. Lees transitioned from player to coach this season.
Andrew J. Whitaker
A new direction
Lees ultimately appeared in 110 games in a Redhawks uniform, starting 101 and helping the program win regular-season and tournament conference titles, earning an NCAA Regional berth.
He played one year under Bieser before spending his senior season under Andy Sawyers' new regime. When the 2016-17 season wrapped up, Lees got an opportunity to earn a paycheck with the Gateway Grizzlies of the independent Frontier League. It might not be the pathway to the major leagues that former teammates Branden Boggetto, Clay Chandler and Joey Lucchesi were on, but it was professional baseball.
But when his 2017 stint with the Grizzlies came to an end, he had a talk with his coach. Lees had unfinished business in Cape Girardeau -- a degree to complete -- and that would mean a late arrival for the 2018 season. In the end, the catcher came to a decision. He had seen Boggetto and Chandler return in the offseason to take classes and pursue their college degrees, but that didn't interest him. Lees did not want to put his education off. So his days playing baseball had to make way.
Upon returning to campus, Lees was required, per SEMO guidelines, to volunteer a minimum of seven hours per week in order to receive scholarship support in the form of fifth-year aid. So he put in hours helping Sawyers and the baseball team in the fall.
That got the wheels turning in the head coach's head: If Lees is here anyway, why not bring him on in a bigger role?
"Obviously a lot of big-league managers were catchers, and Brian, being a catcher, a skilled defensive guy, you figure he has an above-average baseball IQ -- he knows the game very well. Also, he's a good communicator. He speaks well; he can articulate things," Sawyers says. "When we wanted to add somebody to help us out, he was an obvious choice. Plus, he was going to be here, right?
Southeast Missouri State first base coach Brian Lees talks to players during a game against South Dakota State on March 4, 2018, at Capaha Field in Cape Girardeau.
BEN MATTHEWS
"It was the right situation. He needed the next year to get his degree and to have a former catcher help us out and fill in some coaching roles for us, it was an easy choice."
Lees had heard before that maybe he should consider coaching, but it had more often been the thought of others than his own. But as his playing career ended and he dove into things with the Redhawks in the fall, he embraced the opportunity.
This spring, he has acted as first base coach while also tutoring the catchers on the roster and helping with hitting.
He also undertakes a lot of unglamorous tasks, from throwing batting practice to setting up the field to laundry.
"It's an entry-level position. You've got two ears and one mouth and you've got to use them in that ratio," Sawyers says. "You do a lot of, 'Brian, will you set this up; Brian, will you do this.' It's entry level and you need to keep your mouth shut and grind at it and he's done a good job. He's being a sponge and keeping his ears open and plugging away. It's some of the menial tasks -- the thankless stuff, the grunt work that makes a program work. And he's stepped in and done a really nice job in that role."
Along the way he's learned about the sheer breadth and depth of things that go on behind the scenes, from scouting reports to preparing game-day logistics well in advance to booking travel for away series to simply making sure there are baseballs at the field.
He's also had to learn how to manage shifting dynamics of relationships he already had. Coming straight off the baseball field and onto the coaching staff, Lees is not only barely older than the current Redhawks, but he was teammates with a number of them -- he was "locker roommates" with first baseman Tristen Gagan.
"Sometimes you see guys who start and they want to be buddy buddy and they want to be friends with them," Sawyers says. "At the same time, you can't try to be a hard case yelling and screaming at them every day because they're not going to respect it. You just kind of have to be yourself and not lord your authority over them, but you also can't be their pal. He's got to tell them what to do. I think he's handled that very well, but he's a mature kid and has a good way about him in terms of how he handles himself and how he communicates with others and I think he's handled that transition as well as anyone could."
To hear Lees talk about the experience, there are two words he repeats over and over again.
"It's been an honor and a blessing for Coach Sawyers to kind of bring me along," Lees says. "It's been an honor; it's been a blessing. I don't really consider it work coming out here to the ball park every day just doing what I love."
On Saturday, Lees will graduate with a degree in criminal justice, with a minor in sociology. He's not sure what the future will bring. He plans on remaining in Cape Girardeau through the summer, working for the City of Cape and coaching some baseball camps. He is already mining his coaching connections throughout the country to see what he can dig up for next year.
"(I'll see) if I can get a volunteer assistant spot somewhere," Lees says, "and if at the end of the summer it doesn't work out I'll probably move back home to Ohio and just kind of take it step by step, day by day, and see where the journey takes me."
Just like he has before.
